“I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.” (Luke 15:18)

In previous posts I’ve talked about praise and thanksgiving as important aspects of prayer. This week, and for the next two weeks, I’m addressing the topic of confession, which is also a form of prayer.

The word confess means the following: to agree, to admit, to acknowledge. So when we confess to God, we are admitting the truth about ourselves – and the truth about God. Most often, confession is thought of as owning up to our sins before God. This is the aspect of confession I am addressing in this and next week’s post. Two weeks from now I will write about owning up to our standing before God.

Admitting the truth about our sins is not meant to be an exercise in humiliation. Rest assured, God is a generous, patient and forgiving Father, whose Son, Jesus Christ, suffered the full penalty and shame for our sins. As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (1:1) But the effect of Jesus’ sacrifice, on our behalf, will only make a difference in our life when can admit our sinfulness. In other words, we’ve got to own up to the truth about ourselves (and God) in order for the truth to set us free.

The best way for me to illustrate my point is to re-tell a story Jesus told. It is found in the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel and is commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son. The two characters in this parable who are most important to this discussion are the father and the younger son. (I’ll address the older son’s behavior in next week’s post.)

The story begins with the younger of two sons asking for his share of the family estate, immediately. Those hearing Jesus tell this story would know that such a request is totally outrageous. A father in first century Palestine might divide his estate before he dies, but he would hold on to the income until his death. He would never give it away while alive. But this father is not your average father.

The younger son takes the money and heads to a far country (you can just as easily replace the three words in italics with just two words: Las Vegas). There he squanders his money in what Jesus refers to as “loose living” (probably something like gambling, prostitution and binge drinking). And just when his resources dry up – and his friends move on – a famine strikes the country and this younger son is left destitute. So he looks for a job and takes the only one he can get – feeding pigs. This is definitely not something first century Jewish boys from good families should be doing for a living. We are to understand he has sunk as low as he can get.

This is the turning point in the story for the son. When he comes to terms with his degradation he makes a discovery: he has sinned. Jesus narrates this self-discovery by saying the boy “came to his senses” (v. 17). When we “come to our senses” we, too, are ready to confess – to admit the truth about ourselves and about God. In the story the son says to himself, “…I have sinned against heaven and against [my father]” (v.18). Finally he is talking truth.

Up to this point the younger son did not examine the moral consequences of his actions. He just did what he wanted to do. Even if he thought he was doing something wrong, he didn’t show any remorse. He believed the lie that says he can do what he wants when he wants and it doesn’t matter. He is right now when he says to himself, “I am no longer worthy to be called [my father’s] son.” (v.19) His statement is not an example of self-denigration, it is simply the truth about himself — and his father.

All of us sin against God, because all of us are, to some degree or another, self-willed (just another term for “prideful”) and fixated on what we want (a.k.a idolatrous); wanting more and more (which really means “lustful”) at someone’s expense (just plain greedy). No one is capable of refraining from sin for long. Everyone eventually strays “into a far country” like the prodigal son. And the only way back is first to “come to our senses” about our sin.

But notice that the father runs to embrace the boy and welcome him home even before the son has uttered his apology. What this tells me is that our sins haven’t altered God’s love for us. I can imagine the father in the story forgiving the son even as he was handing over the money on which he needed to live. In a similar way God handed over his Son while we were yet sinners. (Romans 5:8) So confession is not about getting God to change his mind. Instead, confession is about setting our mind straight so that we can grasp the truth about Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.

Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt; courtesy Biblical Art on the WWW

In the parable, the father just wants his son back; he is not angry or vindictive. He truly loves this prodigal child. He’s longed for him to return home. In fact, Jesus says, “But while [the boy] was still a long way off, the father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (v.20) This is a father who searches the horizon night and day for some sign of his son’s return. And the day the wayward boy finally does return home, the father throws him a party and declares for all to hear and see that this boy is restored to his rightful position in the family, no questions asked.

When we confess, we are acknowledging that God is God (and we are not) by admitting the ways in which we’ve acted as if we are God. Confession clears away the clutter of lies and distortions we’ve hid behind and allows us to turn back and reclaim our rightful inheritance as our Father’s beloved sons and daughters.

Therefore, we have nothing to fear from admitting the truth – and so much to gain.

2 Responses to Prayer (fifth in a series)

Claudia~
Thank you so much for reminding us of how loving our God is…it is indeed amazing. It is good and right to be humbled in confessing our sins and deepens our relationship with God. Accountability! I also wanted to say that I like the picture that you included. Thank you again for sharing your gifts! ps…I now have a folder entitled: “Claudia’s words.” 🙂 In Christ, Marion

Marion, thank you for your kind words and encouragement. I, too, love Rembrandt’s rendering of the reunion of the father and the prodigal son. The details are exquisite. I see something new each time I look at it. Claudia

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Quotable Corner

"Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees every thing in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is, after all, an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul." Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 263

"After a man is saved, God will continue His training efforts. 'Putting on Christ' and Christ 'being formed in us' and having 'the mind of Christ' certainly do not mean simply reading what Christ said and attempting to put it into practice. Rather they mean that a real Person, not something remote and abstruse, comes to you day after day and 'interfering with you very self' shapes you into a being with a life similar to God's own. The command to the Christian to be perfect is no hyperbole but precisely what Christ meant. He begins on earth a process that will be consummated in heaven, but it is a process and will not allow you successfully to play the hypocrite with your naked self. God will not allow you to take the attitude, 'I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary Chap.' His plan is indeed to make you into a heavenly being. This may account for the rough time Christians go through, for He is turning every one of his children into 'a little Christ.' He is not like a trainer who teaches a horse to jump better; He is in the business of turning horses into winged creatures." Clyde Kilby, The Christian Word of C. S. Lewis, pp. 181-182.

"Wounded healers must forsake the prideful tendency to be defined only in terms of strengths and wholeness. They must will authenticity, especially where they're still weak and tempted. That liberates the witness of God's incredible sufficiency and makes real that sufficiency through others who mediate Christ's grace and truth." Andrew Comiskey, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness, p, 191

"The historical roots of the theory of evolution are quite complex. But apart from a newly awakened fascination with the "laws of history" (Herder, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche) there was, no doubt, another ingredient: the Industrial Revolution with its concept of advance by improved workability. The idea that in the vast factory of nature things which do not work well are discarded for things which work better arises out of the mood of the nineteenth century. The entire universe was made to fit the drab climate of Manchester. While the pic of Genesis, with its powerful poetic form, was rejected as "anthropomorphic," an evolutionist concept of how things came about is tinged with the ephemeral of the laboratory and the market place." Karl Stern, The Flight from Woman. p. 291

"When people are so self-convinced that the world needs their accomplishments more than their sanctity and prayer-depth, they never do face squarely the overwhelming figure of Christ and his message in life and word." Thomas Dubay, S. M., The Evidential Power of Beauty, p. 301

"Ministries which attack only the surface of sin and fail to ground spiritual growth in the believer's union with Christ produce either self-righteousness or despair, and both of these conditions are inimical to spiritual life." Richard F. Lovelace in "Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal"

"Every Christian experience is an experience of faith; that is, it is an experience of what we have not...We are not saved by the love we exercise, but by the love we trust." P. T. Forsyth in "Christian Perfection"

"The heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of." Blaise Pascal

"To believe in [Jesus Christ] and not to believe in what He believed, not to love what He loved and not to desire what He desired, is not to believe in Him." Alexander Schmemann in "Of Water & the Spirit"

"Because victory is his, therefore it is ours. If only we will not try to gain the victory but simply to maintain it, then we shall see the enemy utterly routed. We must not ask the Lord to enable US to overcome the enemy, nor even look to HIM to overcome, but praise him because he has already done so; he IS victor. It is all a matter of faith in him. If we believe the Lord, we shall not pray so much but rather we shall praise him more. The simpler and clearer our faith in him, the less we shall pray in such situations and the more we shall praise." Watchman Nee in "Sit, Walk, Stand."